Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

This government has delivered the lowest premium rise in 17 years in private health, lower than every single year under Labor. Labor's average rise is 40 per cent higher than has occurred this year. They know—look at them. They see six per cent, 5.8 per cent, 5.6 per cent, 5.1 per cent, 5.6 per cent and 6.2 per cent as opposed to the 3.95 per cent that we've just delivered. Those are the actual rises, the actual premiums; the realities that consumers faced.

In the last year, we have embarked upon the biggest reform in private health insurance in a decade and it delivers the lowest changes in 17 years. But let us understand this: what they said last time they went into government was that they weren't going to touch private health insurance. They were not going to go near it. The then shadow minister, the member for Gellibrand, said on many occasions, for many months: 'Federal Labor has made it crystal clear that we're committed to retaining all of the private health insurance rebates, including the 30 per cent general rebate.' Then they axed it. Then they cut $4 billion from private health. They lied. They deceived. They told untruths. They misled the Australian public. What did the member for Sydney, the current Deputy Leader of the Australian Labor Party, say after they left government? 'How did I pay for it? I paid for it by targeting private health insurance.' You won't hear a clearer example of (a) hypocrisy, (b) dishonesty and (c) sheer hatred for private health insurance. They slashed the rebate and this time they will slash the rebate again.

All of this came about because the Leader of the Opposition, trying to be very smart, made a disastrous speech to the Press Club. In that speech, he sort of hinted that the private health insurance rebate might go. He had to walk back from that by breakfast the next morning, appearing on breakfast TV to say, 'We won't abolish it,' but he left open the potential and the plan to slash it. But, more than that, irrespective of what they do to the rebate, as they did last time, they also want to rip away the lowest cost premiums from those who are least capable of affording private health. They would take away what the rest of the industry calls 'basic'. If you've just reconfirmed that you want to get rid of basic policies, you've committed to a 16 per cent increase—

Ms Catherine King interjecting —

He just did. And, no, it's not. It's a 16 per cent increase in private health insurance premiums. Let us understand this: Labor have a plan, a proposal, an intention, a commitment to a 16 per cent increase in private health insurance premiums. That's what they did last time: they took an axe to the rebate. That's what they will do next time: take an axe to the rebate and put in place a 16 per cent rise in private health insurance. You may value private health insurance. Labor have never had a belief in it. They don't support it. They haven't supported it. The member for Sydney made it absolutely clear that she was proud of 'targeting' private health insurance.

There is the current policy—the disaster; the thought bubble. I didn't use those words myself. There is somebody called Mark Fitzgibbon, well known to the member for Hunter as his brother and also the head of NIB. What did he say? He described it as a 'thought bubble'. Most interestingly, the day before the private health insurers were informed of this, the member for Ballarat met with them and she told them there were no secret plans to cap private health. She told them—

Ms Catherine King interjecting—

Yes, I was, effectively—'There are no secret plans to cap private health.' Twenty-four hours later, she had to ring around and apologise, 'I'm sorry. It's not me. I know I said this yesterday.' This is one of the great humiliations for somebody who seeks to be the health minister of this country. Trust with that sector has been eroded. She knows and we know that this was a last-second attempt to fix up a disastrous Press Club speech. What has been the response? Forget us. Forget the major health insurers. This is what the CEO of the Teachers Union Health Fund, only last week, said:

To continue to make the products affordable and so the 2 per cent can be accommodated, insurers might reduce benefits for certain procedures or restrict them ...

Insurers would reduce benefits. In other words, gaps would go up, there would be a reduced number of procedures and choice would go down. Gaps up; choice down. What an assault on the health system in Australia—the very thing that they seek to support; the very thing that they pretend matters to them: lower out-of-pocket costs and better choice for consumers. They would take an axe to both of them.

This isn't just a bad policy; this is a disastrous policy, because it would drive people off private health insurance and therefore drive up public hospital waiting lists. It is very rare that you see the capacity to do damage to everybody with a policy but, on this occasion, the Leader of the Opposition's last-minute thought bubble and last-minute attempt to recover from a disastrous speech to the Press Club is dangerous policy that would have catastrophic impacts on public health, on private health and for patients. The people who would most suffer are the lowest income earners—the pensioners who are struggling to meet their payments. This is why we've embarked on the biggest reform in a decade, and we still have a lot more to do. They are the ones who will be most likely to need private health as they are older and they are the ones who therefore will be most likely to have higher out-of-pocket costs. This is an attack on the health and security of our pensioners and our seniors, and it is an extraordinary moment of policy failure on behalf of the Labor Party.

Then we go on to public hospitals. What we've seen is a $30 billion increase from $98 billion to $128 billion in what's being offered over the new five-year period as opposed to the current five-year period. What we see is an extraordinary increase already signed onto by Western Australian Labor. The Western Australian Labor government has signed onto this. The New South Wales government has signed onto it. After all the criticism, Queensland made it clear, Victoria also opened the door and we know that the ACT and the Northern Territory are on the way. This is what we see, despite those opposite calling around, trying to tell their Labor mates, 'Please, don't sign up.' What sort of parliamentarians are you when you try to stop a national deal by calling around state leaders? What sort of people are you when you do that? Despite that, we've seen that this has landed in an extraordinarily positive place and will deliver $30 billion of additional funding.

Labor, prior to the last election, liked to hint that they were going to add $57 billion. How much did they actually turn up with? They turned up with $2 billion. That represents four per cent of their pledged and promised initiatives—a 96 per cent failure rate. Anywhere else, that's a fail. But, I tell you what, these people don't even stack up in their wildest fantasies to our reality. Since the Prime Minister's agreement, there's been a $7.7 billion increase in public hospital funding under this government, and that's before you get to a $30 billion increase, from $98 billion to $128 billion. Those are the facts. They are the realities. Most significantly, when you go to what it means to patient care, we've also seen record bulk-billing numbers. Bulk-billing represents people being able to go to the doctor without having to pay, without having to put their hand in their pocket. We are up to 85.9 per cent. That is 3.2 per cent higher as a percentage of the population than it was when Labor left government.

What we see is increased hospital funding, record bulk-billing rates and the lowest private health insurance premium rate in 17 years. It is worth recalling Labor's private health insurance cost hikes of 5.8, 5.6, 5.1, 5.6 and 6.2 per cent. At the same time, they slashed the rebate. In the end, we believe in the public hospital system and we believe in Medicare. We've backed it with the reality of Medicare funding going from $23 billion to $24 billion to $26 billion to $28 billion. We've backed it with a $30 billion increase in public hospital funding. We've backed it with record bulk-billing rates, and we've backed it with the once-in-a-decade reforms that have delivered the lowest private health insurance changes in 17 years. We will protect private health from the acts and the price hikes on the other side. (Time expired)

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